


Knots Untied {Parts One and Two} | Twoshot

by orphan_account



Series: One-Track Minds and Revelations | Camp Camp [2]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Child Abuse, Flashbacks, Twoshot, abuse implications, the rape/non-con is only in flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 19:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Gwen learns the secret of why David is so unrealistically happy, after a day where that unrealistic happiness dies down.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING!
> 
> Mature themes such as suicide mention/description, hanging/drowning/asphyxiation description, self harm mention/description, rape mention, and child abuse mention/description, as well as flashback description to all of the listed trigger warnings are present in this oneshot. Proceed with caution; reader discretion is heavily advised.
> 
> { This was requested by my friend a couple of months ago, over on Wattpad. It was also originally uploaded as two parts, which is why the title and chapters have "Part One/Part Two" in them! }

The night was quiet, and Gwen enjoyed the silence that accompanied her nights. Tonight however the silence was bothersome, and it was entirely because of David.  _Everybody_  had noticed how he'd been oddly quiet all day, and the absurdity of him seeming so tired ate at her mind the whole time. She had told herself she'd talk to him that night, and she would keep to it.

The door to the counsellors' cabin was slightly opened, which it hadn't been before. That meant either David was going to bed, or Max has snuck in to steal David's phone for the sixth time that week. Gwen hoped it was the former as she stepped inside of the cabin. It was empty, much to her dismay; there was no little pessimistic pest, nor was there a normally disgustingly optimistic idiot. It was a little concerning; especially when Gwen noticed that a little pile of supplies in the corner of the room had been tampered with. Things were knocked over, and a rope was missing. What the hell anybody planned on doing with a rope, Gwen had no clue. But was concerning that such a particular thing had gone missing.

Gwen left the cabin, closing the door behind her. She couldn't go too far, as someone had to be close enough to be able to make sure the campers were okay. But she'd still go as far as she could in order to search for David and to find out what the hell he was going to do.

Passing by one of the tents, she could hear quiet talking; it was Neil, Harrison, Preston and Max (because Harrison and Preston had gone inside Max and Neil's tent for whatever reason. Gwen didn't know).

"David's been really weird today." Neil's voice was shaky, as always.

"He was crying earlier," Max added in, "not like that pussy, pathetic crying he always does. It sounded... real. It was actually kinda scary to hear him."

"Yeah..." Preston said, "I was with you. It was nerve-wracking."

"Do you think he's okay?" Harrison asked.

"Not sure..." Max answered, "but we're gonna find out tomorrow. Even if we have to force it out of him."

"That's a bit much, Max–"

"So what, Neil? It's better than sitting around and watching him fuck himself over from being miserable all the goddamn time like this!"

The tent went quiet after that, and Gwen assumed that meant their conversation was over. She continued on, looking back every once in a while to make sure that nothing was out of the ordinary.

❖

Searching as much of the campground as she could proved to be fruitless, and Gwen soon found herself by Lake Lilac, which was the last place she needed to search. She didn't have to search long, as she soon found David sitting on his own, legs dangling in the water, and his eyes fixated on something that was in his hands. Gwen jogged her way over to him, calling his name as she did; however he didn't look up at her until she was right next to him.

"Oh, Gwen..." he let out an awkward, sheepish chuckle, "funny meeting you out here."

"David, we need to talk," Gwen answered with no hesitation, "it's extremely important." She sat down next to him, crossing her legs. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, "I need you to answer any questions I honestly, okay?"

In his eyes, Gwen could see a twinkle of.. fear? Was he afraid? "O... okay...?" David responded. The unease in his tone was evident, and it worried Gwen even more. He didn't want to talk about it, but he needed to.

Gwen took a deep breath, and the first question rolled out, "why were you so miserable earlier today?"

David let out a quiet splutter, before quickly reverting to another laugh. "What do you mean, miserable? I've been perfectly fine all day!" he laughed yet again, before it died down. His eyes returned to his hands, and Gwen's eyes followed; in his hands was the rope that was missing from the pile of supplies. "Truth be told..." David mumbled. Gwen's eyes didn't leave the rope as he spoke. "I was... tired, I guess. So I started thinking about things. And they got to be too much, I guess." Gwen heard a quiet sniffle, and looked up at David's face; his eyes were beginning to water, but he pulled an arm up and wiped the forming tears away.

"What..." Gwen asked, "what we're you thinking about...?"

"Oh, nothing important," David's voice was much lower, practically down to a whisper, "just... my parents, my childhood..." He sighed shakily and looked up at Gwen. "Look, Gwen, it's sweet of you to be worried and all but honestly, I really don't want to talk about it."

"David–"

"Please."

Silence. Concerned violet eyes stared into blank green ones. Gwen stuttered a bit, before she sighed. "Alright, David... I'll leave–"

"I don't want you to leave, though..."

Gwen stopped in the middle of getting up and glanced down at David. "Huh?"

"I just... I don't want to talk about it," David mumbled, "promise you'll stay?"

"Of course, David..." Gwen smiled softly, setting herself down on the ground again. She removed her boots and socks, dipping her toes in the freezing lake water and shuddering. The both laughed, and eventually everything when quiet. After a few minutes of the quiet David commented on the beauty of the stars.

"They're like freckles in the sky," he said with a quiet laugh.

Gwen laughed along and added, "like yours."

David looked at her, a look of confusion on his face. "What...?" he mumbled.

"Well, they're speckling your face... kinda like the stars in the sky..." Gwen stammered, trying to make sense of what she'd said. She sighed, "you know what's, never mind, it didn't make any s–"

"No, it did," a small smile spread across David's lips, "and thanks, Gwen. I needed that." He laughed softly, and Gwen joined him. The laughing died down again, and they both sighed simultaneously. The counsellors went quiet again, and their eyes returned to the stars. The minutes ticked by slowly, with some idle chit chat coming up every once in a while. It was nice, as neither of them ever really took the time to just sit and enjoy the lake and the sky.

While a small conversation about old cartoons they used to watch was on the go, Gwen yawned mid-sentence. She then let out a quiet chuckle and said, "God, I'm getting tired..."

"You can head back, if you want," David said, "I don't mind."

"But you'd be out here all alone. And I'm kinda scared to know what you'd do with that rope on your own."

David laughed. "I won't do anything tonight."

"I don't believe you, David. Not after the way you were acting today."

"Gwen, seriously."

"David, seriously."

The two counsellor's stared each other down for a bit, before David let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, if I tell you what was actually on my mind, will you trust me a little more?"

Gwen raised an eyebrow. "That makes it sound like you liked about thinking of your parents and childhood."

"Well..." David mumbled, "I wasn't really lying... I just wasn't specific."

Gwen eyed him suspiciously, before she responded, "okay, I'm listening."

_To be continued..._

 


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen learns about exactly what happened that forced David to plaster such a bright smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!  
> Mature themes such as suicide mention/description, hanging/drowning/asphyxiation description, self harm mention/description, rape mention, and child abuse mention/description, as well as flashback description to all of the listed trigger warnings are present in this oneshot. Proceed with caution; reader discretion is heavily advised.
> 
> { This is the chapter where the warnings are actually described!!!! It starts right away, too. }

 

_The first thing I remembered after getting thrown against the wall for the first time was waking up in my father's room. I was... five? Six, maybe? Of course, age doesn't change what he did. Or what he thought of me. There wasn't much said between us before he got to it; my clothes were off, and he took out a belt. It was... painful. At least, it was the first time. But over the span of a few weeks I grew numb to it. I got used to getting whipped. And getting thrown at the wall, too. It became a daily thing; my dad constantly abused me, while my mother just sat around and either watched in amusement or averted her attention completely._

_Three or four years into the abuse and the health teachers at school educated us about self-harm. It was familiar to me; I remembered my father had told me I should slit my wrists a couple of times, and this "self-harm" thing started to sound similar, and like a good idea. So I started doing it; I'd found a knife in the kitchen that my parents never used that was still sharp, and could cut skin easily enough. Every night, on my arms, legs, stomach... anywhere that I could easily hide it from people at school. It was my release; I never really made a lot of friends, anyway, so who could I talk to to release tension? There was no one. So self-harm was the only thing. Besides, my father kept congratulating when he noticed they started getting deeper as the months went on._

_Around five years after the first time, so a year or two after learning about self-harm, things got... rougher. Clothes came off as per usual, but it wasn't just mine. This time, my father was stripping down too. He was angry, and he was drunk. He was also hung, and dry. That's how he went in every time; dry, and relentless until he was satisfied. Sometimes it would take hours for that to happen, but again I got used to it. But even after getting used to it, the pain didn't numb over time the same way the beatings did. It seemed to hurt more each time, and I started wondering, "what did I do to make him hate me like this? What did I do to deserve this?" I must've done SOMETHING. But I could never figure out what I did. So it all continued, and I stayed in a questioning kind of state until I turned sixteen. Once I hit sixteen, I'd finally had enough._

_I was at a classmate's house, and we were working on a partner project for science class. His father was a thrill-seeker, and of course kept things like ropes in the garage for things like cliff-scaling. My partner had gone to the bathroom, and I was feeling desperate for an escape that day; I'd spent three hours convincing my parents to even let me leave the house the day before, and even then it was only my mother who had given me permission. But I didn't care. Six years of incestuous rape warranted me needing a break. And I was going to get that break through staying at a classmate's house overnight. But in that garage, I found myself stealing rope from his dad's stores and making my way out to the small forest behind his house. I had that rope around my neck, and I found myself sitting in a tree branch, with the other end of the rope tied to the branch. I was going to hang myself; it was the only definitive way I could think of that got me away from that hell I lived in. The worst part was that even before I dropped off that branch I could hear my classmate yelling at me from one of the windows in a dead panic. But I did it anyway. Little did I know that I hadn't checked that everything was alright._

_There was something wrong, and I didn't find out until I was choking. My neck didn't break like it was supposed to; I hadn't tied the noose properly, and I didn't fall with enough force. So I was stuck in this awful, slow asphyxiation. It was torture. Within seconds—which were excruciatingly slow, by the way—I felt like my head was under crazy amounts of pressure. Like gravity was pushing against the walls of my skull and get out. My lungs felt like they were on fire, or like someone had begun sizzling them in a frying pan. It was hell, it was slow, it was excruciating. But eventually things started going dark. Hearing my classmate screaming my name was really the last thing I remember before everything became nonexistent to me._

_Waking up in the hospital was a surprise, though. I woke up with my classmate in tears by my bedside. He was holding my hand and saying things that I really didn't understand. Things like "you scared me," "I was scared you were dead," and "I was so worried, David." It was really, really surprising. His parents offered to pay for therapy and everything, but I declined. I felt like I couldn't bring myself to tell anybody. How would my parents react? They'd only worsen the punishments. So I kept quiet, even after doctors and classmates begged me to talk. I kept quiet until today, after moving out of my parents' house and getting a summer job here. But it's all still weighed heavily on my mind, and I always wondered... should I just go back to it and go back to getting something I might have deserved?_

The recollection finished, and Gwen was left staring in shock at David, who was simply stating down at the rope still tightly gripped in his now shaking hands. She could see the tears he was holding back. She was speechless for minutes on end, her jaw hanging open with nary a response. David let out a quiet sigh, and looked up at the sky. "I've... never really told anybody the whole story before..." he paused again, before directing his eyes to gaze at Gwen. "It... honestly feels so relieving to get it off my chest..." the slightest of smiles curved on his quivering lips. He let out an awkward chuckle, before the smile faded. "Sorry..."

"Sorry?" Gwen asked. She reached out and pulled David into a hug. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about, David. I asked you to tell me this stuff, and you did. All I wanted to know was what was on your mind, and you told me. That's all I asked."

David didn't answer. Gwen felt him shaking in her arms, and soon she could hear him weeping with his face buried in her neck. Without any more words, Gwen started to run his back gently, whispering her awkward words of comfort to him. She let him break down in her arms, allowing for the years of emotion to be released like they needed to be. "Just let it all out..." she whispered, and he did. He sobbed, and he clung to Gwen as if his life depended it. The minutes passed by, and soon the man was sitting up and wiping the tears from his swelling red eyes.

"Th-thanks, Gwen..." he mumbled, "I-I really needed this..." a small hiccup escaped his throat, and they both laughed quietly.

"Everybody needs moments like this sometimes..." Gwen offered a soft and comforting smile, keeping an arm wrapped around David. "Y'know, I'm surprised you've managed to keep up this annoyingly optimistic façade up for so long, especially with all of this shit still on your mind all the time."

David let out a quiet chuckle. "I'm surprised, too; there's a lot of days when I wake up and I wonder if I should even bother anymore, honestly."

"I'm glad you pick to keep bothering every day, David," Gwen said, "I know I always say your happiness is annoying, but I understand it better now. It's your coping mechanism nowadays, isn't it? Instead of hurting yourself?"

David nodded. "It's better to try and make others happy, then to just sit around and mope while slicing your arm open like a watermelon."

"I'm glad you don't do that anymore..." Gwen smiled, and David returned a smile. They were happy again for a moment, before Gwen dulled the mood again with her final question. "Were you... going to try and hang yourself again tonight?"

David froze a minute, a small stutter escaping his lips. It wasn't long before he let out a sigh of defeat. "That's exactly what I was going to do. But I've honestly lost the urge to try... I think this talk really helped with all the built-up negativity. Like it got rid of a lot of the nasty feelings I had."

Gwen let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God..." she mumbled, "I'm not the only person who'd be miserable if you died. The campers'd be lucid if they found out something or someone had hurt you enough to drive you to this."

"Yeah..." David answered, "speaking of the campers, though, I think we should be heading back... it's super late, and I don't want either of us to be too tired to function in the morning." He stood up slowly, and Gwen joined him in standing.

"I think sleep would do both of us good," she said, to which David nodded. They wrapped an arm around each other, making their way back to the counsellors' cabin together.

Gwen felt oddly triumphant as they walked back, and she knew exactly why she felt that way. David's mind had been all tangled up, like a rope that had been tossed around a million times. But bit by bit she untangled that mess of a mind, and she learned some things she didn't expect. But another triumph was how David had trusted her enough to tell her these things that he'd told nobody else before.

Frankly, she couldn't have asked for more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a final part in the "One-Track Minds and Revelations | Camp Camp" series, but it isn't finished (even though I started it in like September).
> 
> Anyway, here's the original author's note that accompanied this on Wattpad; to me, it was kinda funny to re-read the morning after I wrote this lmao
> 
> ________
> 
> Most of this was written between 1 and 4 am while listening to shitty vines, memes, voice impressions, one shitty Nicki Minaj song, and Hamilton with even though we were supposed to be awake by 7 am the same morning to get ready for a convention
> 
> All of this a week after part 1 was finished but not published skdjsjsnsndn eNDETH M E
> 
> BUT ANYWAY HI THIS IS THE HEADCANON STUFF I MENTIONED IN SIMPLE-MINDED (STUPID NEIL) AAAAAAAAAA B Y E
> 
> WOW BAD SEGWAYS OR WHATEVER
> 
> B Y E
> 
> HOPE UR FEELINGS ARE DESTROYED
> 
> THERE'S ONE MORE ONESHOT IN THIS AWKWARD LITTLE SERIES OF "HI I WANNA COMMIT SUICIDE FUCK YOU" STARTING MAX AND DAVID SO UH YEA
> 
> ALSO SORRY THE ENDING WAS WEIRD BUT IT's 3h20 IN THE MORNING AND I'M FALLING ASLEEP WHILE TYPING SO G O O D N I G H T


End file.
